!Tention Part 16

"_Si, el pano_!" cried the girl, ceasing her faint struggle.

"_Si, si_!" cried Pen again, and he joined his hands together for a moment before slowly beckoning their visitor to follow him into the cottage.

He stepped in, and then turned to look back, but only to find that the girl still held aloof, and then turned to look round again as if in search of help. As she once more glanced in his direction with eyes that were full of doubt, Pen walked round to the back of the rough pallet, placing the bed between them, and then beckoned to the girl to come nearer as he pointed downward at his sleeping patient.

Their visitor still held aloof, till Pen raised his hands towards her, joining them imploringly, and his heart leaped with satisfaction as she began slowly and cautiously to approach.

And now for his part he sank upon his knees, and as she watched him, looking ready to dart away at any moment, he placed one finger upon his lips and raised his left hand as if to ask for silence, while he uttered softly the one word, "Hush!"

To his great satisfaction the girl now approached till her shadow fell across the bed, and, supporting herself by one hand, she peered in.

"I'd give something if I could speak Spanish now," thought Pen. "What can I do to make her understand that he is wounded? She ought to be able to see. Ah, I know!"

He pointed quickly to his rifle, which was leaning against the bed, and then downward at where the last-applied bandage displayed one end.

Then, pointing to poor Punch's face, he looked at the girl sadly and shook his head.

It was growing quite dusk inside the hut, but Pen was able to see the girl's face light up as, without a moment's hesitation now she stepped quickly through the rough portal and bent down so that she could lightly touch the sleeper's hand, which she took in hers as she bent lower and then rose slowly, to meet Pen's inquiring look; and as she shook her head at him sadly he saw that her eyes were filling with tears.

"Sick," he whispered; "dying. _El pano, el pano_;" and his next movement was telling though grotesque, for he opened his mouth and made signs of eating, before pointing downward at the boy.

"_Si, si_," cried the girl quickly, and, turning to the door again, she pa.s.sed through, signing to him to follow, but only to turn back, point to the little pail that stood upon the floor by the bed's head, and indicate that she wanted it.

Pen grasped her meaning, caught up the pail, handed it to her, and quite simply and naturally sank upon one knee and bent over to lightly kiss the girl's extended hand, which closed upon the edge of the little vessel.

She shrank quickly, and a look of half-dread, half-annoyance came upon her countenance; but, as Pen drew back, her face smoothed and she nodded quickly, pointed in the direction of the big fall, made two or three significant gestures that might or might not have meant, "I'll soon be back," and then whispered, "_El pano, el pano_;" and ran off over the rugged stones as swiftly as one of her own mountain goats.

"Ha!" said Pen softly, as he sighed with satisfaction, "_el pano_ means bread, plain enough, and she must have understood that. Gone," he added, as the girl disappeared. "Then there must be another cottage somewhere in that direction, and I am going to hope that she will come back soon with something to eat. Who could have thought it?--But suppose she has gone to join some of the French who are about here, and comes back with a party to take us prisoners!--Oh, she wouldn't be so treacherous; she can't look upon us as enemies. We are not fighting against her people. But I don't know; they must look upon us as made up of enemies. No, no, she was only frightened, and no wonder, to find us in her hut, for it must be hers or her people's. Else she wouldn't have come here. No, a girl like that, a simple country girl, would only think of helping two poor lads in distress, and she will come back and bring us some bread."

As Pen stood watching the place where the girl had disappeared his hand went involuntarily to his pocket, where he jingled a few _pesetas_ that he had left; and then, as he canva.s.sed to himself the possibility of the girl's return before long, he went slowly back into the hut and stood looking down at the sleeper.

"Bread and milk," he said softly. "It will be like life to him. But how queer it seems that I should be worrying myself nearly to death, giving up my clothes to make him comfortable, playing doctor and nurse, and nearly starving myself, for a boy for whom I never cared a bit. I couldn't have done any more for him if he had been my brother. Why, when I used to hear him speak it jarred upon me, he seemed so coa.r.s.e and common. It's human nature, I suppose, and I'm not going to doubt that poor girl again. She looks common and simple too--a Spanish peasant, I suppose, who had come to milk and see to the goats after perhaps being frightened away by the firing. A girl of seventeen or eighteen, I should say. Well, Spanish girls would be just as tender-hearted as ours at home. Of course; and she did just the same as one of them would have done. She looked sorry for poor Punch, and I saw one tear trickle over and fall down.--There, Punch, boy; we shall be all right now if the French don't come."

Pen stepped out in the open and seated himself upon a piece of mossy rock where he could gaze in the direction where he had last seen his visitor. But it was all dull and misty now. There was the distant murmur of the great fall, the sharp, sibilant chirrup of crickets. The great planet which had seemed like a friend to him before had risen from behind the distant mountain, and there was a peculiar sweet, warm perfume in the air that made him feel drowsy and content.

"Ah," he sighed, "they say that when things are at their worst they begin to mend. They are mending now, and this valley never felt, never looked, so beautiful before. How one seems to breathe in the sweet, soft, dewy night-air! It's lovely. I don't think I ever felt so truly happy. There, it's of no use for me to watch that patch of wood, for I could not see our visitor unless she was coming with a lantern; and perhaps she has had miles to go. Well, watching the spot is doing no good, and if she's coming she will find her way, and she is more likely not to lose heart if I'm in the hut, for I might scare her away. Here, let's go in and see how poor old Punch is getting on! But I never thought--I never could have imagined--when I was getting up my 'lessons for to-morrow morning' that the time would come when I should be waiting and watching in a Spanish peasant's hut for some one to come and bring me in for a wounded comrade a cake of black-bread to keep us both alive."

Pen Gray walked softly in the direction of the dimly seen hut through heathery brush, rustling at every step and seeming to have the effect of making him walk on tiptoe for fear he should break the silence of the soft southern evening.

The lad stopped and listened eagerly, for there was a distant shout that suggested the hailing of a French soldier who had lost his way in the forest. Then it was repeated, "Ahoy-y-hoy-hoy-y-y!" and answered from far away, and it brought up a suggestion of watchful enemies searching for others in the darkened woods.

Then came another shout, and an e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.i.o.n of impatience from the listener.

"I ought to have known it was an owl. Hallo! What's that? Has she come back by some other way?"

For the sound of a voice came to him from inside the rough hut, making him hurry over the short distance that separated him from the door, where he stood for a moment or two listening, and he heard distinctly, "Not me! I mean to make a big fight for it out of spite. Shoot me down--a boy--for obeying orders! Cowards! How would they like it themselves?"

"Why, Punch, lad," said Pen, stepping to the bedside and leaning over his comrade, "what's the matter? Talking in your sleep?"

There was no reply, but the muttering voice ceased, and Pen laid his hand upon the boy's forehead, as he said to himself, "Poor fellow! A good mess of bread-and-milk would save his life. I wonder how long she will be!"

CHAPTER ELEVEN.

PUNCH'S COMMISSARIAT.

It was far longer than Pen antic.i.p.ated, for the darkness grew deeper, the forest sounds fainter and fainter, and there were times when the watcher went out to listen and returned again and again to find Punch sleeping more restfully, while the very fact that the boy seemed so calm appeared to affect his comrade with a strange sense of drowsiness, out of which he kept on rousing himself, muttering the while with annoyance, "I can't have her come and find me asleep. It's so stupid. She must be here soon."

And after a trot up and down in the direction in which he had seen the girl pa.s.s, and back, he felt better.

"Sleep is queer," he said to himself. "I felt a few minutes ago as if I couldn't possibly keep awake."

He softly touched Punch's temples again, to find them now quite cool, and seating himself at the foot of the rough pallet he began to think hopefully of the future, and then with his back propped against the rough woodwork he stared wonderingly at the glowing orange disc of the sun, which was peering over the mountains and sending its level rays right through the open doorway of the hut.

Pen gazed at the soft, warm glow wonderingly, for everything seemed strange and incomprehensible.

There was the sun, and here was he lying back with his shoulders against the woodwork of the rough bed. But what did it all mean?

Then came the self-evolved answer, "Why, I have been asleep!"

Springing from the bed, he just glanced at his softly breathing companion as he ran out to look once more in the direction taken by the girl.

Then he stepped back again in the hope that she might have returned during the night and brought some bread; but all was still, and not a sign of anybody having been there.

Pen's heart sank.

"Grasping at shadows," he muttered. "Here have I been wasting time over sleep instead of hunting for food."

Ignorant for the time being of the cause of the wretched feeling of depression which now stole over him, and with no friendly voice at hand to say, "Heart sinking? Despondent? Why, of course you are ready to think anything is about to occur now that you are literally starving!"

Pen had accepted the first ill thought that had occurred to him, and this was that his companion had turned worse in the night and was dying.

Bending over the poor fellow once more, he thrust a hand within the breast of his shirt, and his spirits sank lower, for there was no regular throbbing beat in response, for the simple reason that in his hurry and confusion of intellect he had not felt in the right place.

"Oh!" he gasped, and his own voice startled him with its husky, despairing tone, while he bent lower, and it seemed to him that he could not detect the boy's breath playing upon his cheek.

"Oh, what have I done?" he panted, and catching at the boy's shoulders he began to draw him up into a sitting position, with some wild idea that this would enable him to regain his breath.

But the next moment he had lowered him back upon the rough pallet, for a cry Punch uttered proved that he was very much alive.

"I say," he cried, "whatcher doing of? Don't! You hurt?"

"Oh, Punch," cried Pen, panting hard now, "how you frightened me!"

"Why, I never did nothink," cried the boy in an ill-used tone.

"No, no. Lie still. I only thought you were getting worse. You were so still, and I could not hear you breathe."

"But you shouldn't," grumbled the wounded boy surlily, as he screwed first one shoulder up to his ear and then the other. "Hff! You did hurt! What did you expect? Think I ought to be snoring? I say, though, give a fellow some more of that milk, will you? I'm thirsty.

Couldn't you get some bread--not to eat, but to sop in it?"